


Mirror

by asari (Professor_X)



Series: Seven Seas, Seven Stars [1]
Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Hanahaki Disease, Isekai, Other, Suicidal Thoughts
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-09-18
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:28:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26525986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Professor_X/pseuds/asari
Summary: nana au dump??? maybe...occasionally will center around other ocs. who the fuck knows, not me
Relationships: Smoker (One Piece)/Original Character(s)
Series: Seven Seas, Seven Stars [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1928815
Kudos: 1





	Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> it's shit lol enjoy

the first time nana got hanahaki surgery, their body was still that of a child.

it had been awkward to explain. “yes, belmer, i’m in love with you, despite the fact that you legally adopted me, and that i think you’re too young for me. yes, i know i’m physically five. can we do something about all those flowers i’m puking, now?”

the second time was around ten years later.   
it was also significantly harder to explain. they weren’t supposed to be in love. they weren’t supposed to fall in love. not ever again; the scars were still there and despite everything, despite everything they still did.

despite everything, despite everything they kept falling in love, again and again and again, and were only lucky that it was reciprocated every time. no matter the cuttings of their heart, all the missing pieces, all that said they shouldn’t be able to, they kept falling in love, love with all its strength and all its pain, almost worse in itself than coughing blood-covered petals.

the third time was when they gave up.

it hit the hardest; nana had certainly never had the impulse to act on their feelings the other times. this time, this time they did, and it was so good, it was glorious. it was the warmth of alcohol and the cool of the water on heated skin, and the light of the stars and the caress of the wind in their hair and every good thing rolled into one giant idiot of a man who was foolish enough to run to a pirate when they called him, who was there with them through grief and loneliness and desire and smiles and laughs and so many little happy moments, and so much tenderness, and all that love condemning them now.

they knew from the start it wasn’t reciprocated. it was hard to ignore with how often they told him how much they loved him to a silence and a head pat. 

it didn’t matter. they never expected anything, they just wanted him, and they had that.   
they never cared about anything else. 

it didn’t matter, really; they knew he loved them in another way, and they had his warmth and his attention and all the softness he let himself feel when with them.

but where they weren’t suffering emotionally, they now were physically; and looking at the bird of paradise petals that had just gouged their throat, nana wholly felt the irony of the situation.

it served as a reminder, too, a reminder that the grief was still there, weighting them down, as tangible as the scars on their neck, as the hands they still felt around it and that they had struck down. that the loneliness was still there, nesting on what was left of their frankenstein heart, in the middle of this little island and so far from anyone they had ever known. 

nana had never planned to join the strawhats again after the timeskip, and now - now, they were just _tired_. they had accompanied nami all the way to greatness, they had done all that they could do with all they remembered from the first half of their life, and they were so, so tired. what use was there to stay alive now? they weren’t needed and they didn’t want to be.

so they did nothing. nothing, but keeping it a secret from him.

the control they had over their body turned out useful; decades of smothering coughs to not bother everyone, anyone, ever, and they now could use that to hide their death coming. great.

so they snuck out, every day, twice a day, thrice, to cough and cough and throw up those damn fucking flowers. and as the pain worsened and as the petals multiplied and as their rib cage became a fragile work of art, a hidden greenhouse, full of colors, green and orange and so much red, it became harder and harder to breathe, more than physically, as if the flowers were trying to drown them in all the sadness they had surpassed and all the sadness they had hidden away under the muscles and the bones and that had served as compost for the deadly roots.

and slowly the pain became more than physical. yet, yet, they thought as they looked at the orange blades in their hands, the color of the sun under closed lids, yet they were still happy most of the time. and those few times they cried that they didn’t want to die, to die again, it wasn’t happiness speaking but their fear of waking up in a new body, in a new world. because what’s the use of dying if it just makes you lose everything again?

they were happy still, and that was why they wanted so hard to hide it from him. the idiot would feel terrible about it, after all, and it would ruin everything, it would ruin him. what else could they want but to enjoy him as much as they could and, as the end neared, wait until his departure to let themselves meet theirs at sea, leaving him to wonder what had happened to them, yes, but without him ever having to feel the deep cut of guilt?

(they were happy still, so they deliberately did not think much about the fact that they were also depressive and suicidal and that this fact was condemning them to death in a much more absolute way than the hanahaki disease.

and that none of the people they loved would ever stop waiting for them. that guilt wasn’t the only thing capable of cutting deep and that uncertainty wasn’t any better. but heh, it was easier for them.)

so they hid, and they hid, and they hid, until the pain faded and everything felt still and far away, until the roots had devoured most of them and it was too late for any surgical intervention, and then they hid some more.

it made them distant.

he could only notice, and he became distant too as an answer. but still there, still there, even though there wasn’t much left of nana and not enough for them to really care about it.

there was still, in their tiny, tiny eaten heart, that stubborn thing that refused to stop functioning against all odds, a little spark that cared about it, just a bit.

just a bit.

could they even really feel it, everything muted as it was?

and suddenly they had only a few days before them, two maybe, three, and no matter how cold they had become and how cold they felt he just. he just wasn’t leaving. and nana didn’t even have the energy to do anything about it, now. so they kept getting colder and colder, physically and emotionally and verbally and he kept getting harder, in every way but in words, never in words, like a statuette or a shell or an obsidian knife, harder but fragile.

and then, as they were coming back from puking their guts out in the bathroom, they heard a cough. and as they crept behind him they saw the whitest, softest edelweiss petals between his fingers.

he saw them then; startled and closed his hand and the expression on his face was so terrible and painful and they wanted to laugh, for some reason, and started speaking, and what they wanted to say was: “you should tell them, there’s no reason it would be one-sided”, because they knew it couldn’t be because of them, after all, gd, he knew they loved him, they loved him so much they had decided to keep loving him, and maybe it explained his distance and his hardness, as they didn’t even really realize theirs. but -

but only the first word got out.

there was still, in their tiny, tiny eaten heart, that stubborn thing that refused to stop functioning against all odds, a little spark that cared about it, just a bit, that cared about him, a tiny ember containing a blaze safely packed away from the flowers, and yes, they could feel it, they could feel it still, and at the thought of him loving, at the thought of him leaving, suffering, well - their throat started itching.

the first petals hit him right smack in the face, a few blood drops specking his lips, before it became an explosion, nana vomiting their entire life out on the floor, their legs breaking underneath them, and laughing all the while.

he jumped to them; took them in his arms and the expression on his face was terrible and painful again but in a very different way; and as he mechanically wiped away a few tears they hadn’t noticed they kept laughing and laughing and telling him “i love you! i love you! i can still love you, i do still love you!” interspersed by a few sorry’s. sorry for dying, sorry for dying on you, sorry.

and then they heard the sweetest words, the sweetest words; and their cough stopped.

funny, that of all plants, it would be the edelweiss.

**Author's Note:**

> i tried to put caps in all the right places like some kind of civilized freak but actually it felt terrible. this work is a Bad, Terrible gremlin work and it needs to stay this way


End file.
